Human Resources Committee on Oct. 28th, 2025

[Derek Nighbor]

Homes are key infrastructure. My colleague from the YMCA talked about the social determinants. We're seeing that.

I was in Fort Nelson, B.C., just before the pandemic, as there was a movement to try to rebuild the forest economy in that part of northeastern B.C. The hospital there doesn't deliver babies. You have to go four hours away or, heaven forbid, if you have a complicated pregnancy, then you have to go to Vancouver for maybe a couple of months.

On cellphone coverage and broadband access, some of that social infrastructure is absolutely critical to making these communities attractive as a place where somebody would want to move their young family or start a young family.

There's the access to housing piece as well. There were some stats out of the federal government last year around the inaccessibility of affordable rental properties in rural Canada. I think the housing piece is one of a whole host of pieces that we have an opportunity to focus on. To me, that's a rural lens play and a regional play; it's probably not one-size-fits-all.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

An important thing to include as part of a jobs plan is to actually look at people being able to live where the jobs are.

[Derek Nighbor]

One hundred per cent...plus the related social determinants and supports in that community.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'll spend my last minute and a half on the issue of credential recognition.

When a lot of people think about credential recognition they think about the professions they interact with—often health care. You have important issues around credential recognition in the forestry sector.

In previous engagements I've heard that many Ukrainians who came here, in particular as part of that wave after the start of the further invasion, had backgrounds in forestry, but there were issues in credential recognition. When we fail to recognize the credentials of people who come to this country it's a double negative because they're not able to work, and there are problems in the jobs they could work in. Also, they end up competing against young people in entry-level positions.

I notice the government included some discussion of this in their latest announcement. The fact is that they already have an existing fund that is supposed to be doing this work and is not doing it successfully. We put forward some proposals on credential recognition.

What are your reflections on the link between credential recognition and job creation and how it plays out in your sector?

[Derek Nighbor]

It's critically important. We have the Forest Professional Regulators of Canada, a national body that does work with the provinces. This is another big federal-provincial play where I think there's a huge opportunity to try to align things. From Nova Scotia to B.C., we have different provincial regulatory bodies, so I do think that national body can work through a one-window approach.

We're not an industry that's tapped into the temporary foreign worker program in a big way, so I would view that as an aside. In terms of credentialing newcomers to Canada, I would also say it is about working with the provincial and regional college networks on some of the microcredentialing, because there is an escalation. I mentioned prefab, modular and mass timber. There are a lot of new skills now. When we start building more in factories, that's going to mean that the plumbing and the electrical are done differently. How can we help accelerate some of the trades work and the accreditation to get that done?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Now we go to Ms. Fancy for six minutes.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair. Through you, I'd like to welcome all four of our panellists today. It's always nice to see some east coasters in the house.

I have questions for all of you, but I'd like to start with Mr. Nighbor.

Good afternoon, Mr. Nighbor. We just talked with the colleague across about how we can make natural resources a viable sector for our youth. It reminds me a lot of our forestry and what goes on in my riding of South Shore—St. Margarets, where I have a major industry employer in the area. I want to look at the role the private sector has and its leadership on how we engage youth and tell them this is a viable industry.

My question to you is this: Private sector leadership is vital to tackling youth employment. From your perspective, Mr. Nighbor, what makes federal partnerships, whether through wage subsidy programs or research internships, effective in encouraging employers to hire and mentor youth?

I look at that in a co-op program where I'm from in which they've had a lot of people who have done co-op programs with the local employer and have gone on to actually work for them over the decades.

[Derek Nighbor]

There's mutual benefit there for government and industry alike. These are our workers and our talent of tomorrow. We want to attract people to our communities but also train those people close to home, as I said, as much as we can.

The other thing that's challenging for our members is when the rules of the game change on a regular basis. This is where we should be leaning into multi-year funding. I know that with some of the YESS or the youth employment support programs under ESDC, we had a number of organizations that were funded quite consistently year over year. Then they all stopped getting funding.

There is the case of the outland youth employment program, which to me is a model program for indigenous youth aged 16 to 19 across northern Canada. They had to close a couple of camps at the last minute.

My advice is that the benefit is very clear on both sides, but if my members and our union partners were sitting here, they would talk about consistency and multi-year planning to allow people to really invest and have confidence in making more investments in some of those programs for the future.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's awesome. Thank you very much, Mr. Nighbor.

My next set of questions is for Ms. Skeete and Ms. Vincent.

In Atlantic Canada, we know we have some very unique labour market challenges, if I can put it that way. In our current partnership model, we can look to the future as well. How should the federal government work together with provincial governments and community organizations like yours to help ensure that our youth programs are responding to the local realities of what we're seeing?

[Julie-Ann Vincent]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the question. It's very important to recognize that different areas face different challenges. One of the key things we strongly believe about partnerships, funding models and programs is that they recognize local realities. For example, in Nova Scotia, we have a strong African Nova Scotian population. We have rural and urban communities, and we have small centres. We also have the Acadian population. There isn't one program that is going to serve all of those needs.

In addition to what Mr. Nighbor said about consistency in funding and programs, we agree that it's about investing in local, on-the-ground organizations or partnerships of any kind that actually understand the realities that youth in those regions face. That's going to allow for greater uptake and greater results than a one-size-fits-all approach.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much for that.

Mr. Mahdy, before I became an MP, right up into the first week of the election, I was a grade 9 teacher. You mentioned earlier the take your kid to work day, which I know is coming up the first Wednesday in November. In regard to programs like that and the government's approach to youth employment, with an emphasis on such wraparound supports as mentorships and mental health awareness and financial stability, could you speak very quickly to how these supports can change outcomes for youth?

[Sharif Mahdy]

Absolutely. Take Our Kids to Work is a great example of the whole-of-society approach that I was describing in my opening statement. It requires little government investment and involves a number of non-profit and private sector partnerships that allow for companies to get students into their spaces. Those students have actually told us through our research that Take Our Kids to Work catalyzes a career exploration journey and opens doors to all sorts of career exploration opportunities that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

What we're hearing is this: How can we make Take Our Kids to Work year-round, and how can we broaden it beyond grade 9 as a way to try to address some of the challenges that are happening with youth employment right now? Some of those innovations include, again, private sector and non-profit partnerships where we place some of these students, once they have a career interest in an organization, into paid co-op and paid work-integrated learning experiences that allow them to take what they discovered from Take Our Kids to Work and take it further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Madame Gill, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today. It's very appreciated. We will take what they say into account when making our recommendations.

My questions are for Mr. Nighbor specifically.

I represent an area that is geographically remote, although I could argue that the other regions are the remote ones. I am the federal member of Parliament for Côte‑Nord, a region in Quebec where the forestry sector is everything. That's why I worry about the message the government is sending the forestry industry and young people, because they are interconnected.

For years, we have faced crises when the time came to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is now the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. Since January, we have been in a crisis involving our neighbours to the south, but the government isn't sending any positive signals to the forestry industry.

On one hand, we're being told that the youth unemployment rate is up, but on the other, there's a labour shortage. We have both supply and demand, but we can't seem to match one with the other. That makes me worried.

Where I'm from, CEGEPs train students in the forestry sector, of course. Groupe Rémabec, Arbec, Domtar and Kruger are some of the forestry companies in my region; it's also home to Boisaco, which has a different type of business model. What message are we sending young people? We are telling them not to go into the field, because there are no jobs since the government pays the sector no mind when it signs trade deals. It feels as though the message we're sending young people is this: There is no future in forestry, so you're better off forgetting about it and going into something else.

It struck me when the Prime Minister decided not to give workers hard hit by the crisis wage subsidies to help them keep their jobs. On the contrary, they were told to get trained in another field, to find another type of work.

Could you tell us what you think should be done? As we speak, a sector is being dismantled and young people simply see no future in it. It was already a struggle to attract them to forestry with all the crises that have hit the sector over the past four decades.

What needs to be done? What message does the government have to send youth to make them interested in forestry again, so as to generate wealth for our communities and young people alike?

[Derek Nighbor]

Thank you for the question.

I appreciate your engagement and Monsieur Simard's engagement in support of our sector. It's definitely a difficult time. It's very tough to now recruit people into a sector when people are wondering if the mill is still going to be there in a couple of months. There's no doubt about that. That said, I have hope in two areas.

One, what we've been talking to the government about is that the best result for our youth, for our industry and for our forest-dependent communities is to get a deal at the negotiating table that works with the United States as soon as we can—not a bad deal but the best deal as soon as we can. We get that it's complex, but what we're hearing for our sector is that it's not close right now. What we need to do is protect our employees, to bridge us to try to get through this. That's the priority right now in terms of supporting young people.

I'd also say that the initial package the government.... We're probably in the range of 1,000 to 2,000 across the country in terms of layoffs or curtailments right now. The $50 million as part of the response package is designed to support about 6,000 displaced workers. What we're working on with Unifor Québec, the steelworkers and others is the next step. If this drags on further and if the employment impact is beyond 6,000, we need a response package to protect those families and those workers.

It's a two-part issue. We have a natural challenge. It's tough to recruit now, but I think we just need to work with the government to try to get the supports in place to keep as many people connected to the mills for as long as possible.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

The message needs to be different, then. You mentioned everything the government announced but has yet to put on the table. We are still waiting for measures to be implemented.

You talked about keeping people in their jobs, but there are no supports for that. I also heard you talk about employment insurance, EI, although in a different way than I'm about to. Nonetheless, we talk about it here as well. Workers need that support.

We have a lot of people in my region who do seasonal work, especially tree planters. Government supports for temporary foreign workers also contribute to the decline in regional forestry workers. The fact that the work is devalued may also explain why young people don't want to work in the sector.

Would you like to see the government show more support for the forestry sector? I don't see that now. I hear the government talking about the steel and auto sectors, and I agree they're important, but forestry never seems to be one of the government's top concerns. Do you wish it was?

[Derek Nighbor]

The first thing I'll say on worker supports is that we can't forget about our contractors. Quite often, these programs will support full-time employees at our mills, but the truck drivers, the loggers and the mechanics are the first ones hit. Our ask to the federal government is to ensure any support package for workers includes contractors.

On the government mention, this has been an active debate in the sector for many weeks. It was steel, aluminum, auto, energy and forestry. In the last two weeks, it has been steel, aluminum and energy. That has been frustrating for us, to be very honest with you. We get that it's very difficult, and we get there might be reasons at the negotiating table for that. That said, we don't expect to know everything going on with the negotiating strategy, but we need to know where we stand.

Our message last week to Minister Joly, the PMO and others was to please keep us posted. If things are shifting, please let us know so we can communicate with our people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

Mr. Généreux, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses.

I have a question for you, Mr. Nighbor. About seven or eight years ago, Mr. Trudeau announced an initiative to plant two billion trees. Did you see any of those trees? Do you know where they are?

[Derek Nighbor]

The companies and workers I work with aren't.... Those tree-planting contracts have been through the provinces with other contracting agencies. There hasn't been a prime benefit to us.

What we'd like to see if that program were to continue.... There is a lot of land under the purview of provincial governments that has been burned so hot that the trees aren't growing back. My pitch would be to think about other ways to use that program.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Making promises is easy. That's more or less my point.

In my riding, the White Birch Paper mill, which manufactures paper from wood chips, is currently closed, leaving 175 people out of work since August. The mill was supposed to resume operations in November, but that's been postponed until January, so nothing is for sure.

We've met with various industry stakeholders. Yesterday, I spoke with one of the biggest players in Quebec, which has a mill in Saint‑Pamphile, in the regional county municipality of L'Islet. They told me that they couldn't sell their lumber to New Hampshire, a four-hour drive from my riding, because the Europeans could sell to the state for less. The U.S. tariffs on Canada are to blame, especially since the extra 10% was put on.

What do we tell our young people in Saint‑Pamphile and the rest of Quebec's regions? You talked about the regions, and that's probably the most important thing we should be talking about today. It's important to talk about the regions. That applies to all regions in Canada, not just those in Quebec. However, they are especially top of mind for me, as they are for my fellow member next to me, of course. It's not complicated; our regions depend on forestry products, so we need help.

What are you asking the federal government for at this time?

[Derek Nighbor]

Your comment about Europe is really important, because since 2017 we have lost 6% market share on softwood lumber in the United States. It has not been to the Americans. The Americans have stayed flat. We've lost six points to the Europeans who, right now, enjoy a 30% advantage on the trade side, so that's a big challenge.

In terms of next steps with government, the package that was announced in the beginning of August was a good first step, but it was just a first step. The $700 million through BDC hasn't quite flowed yet, but it's getting close. The $50 million for worker supports is only going to be enough to support about 6,000 workers, and that's going to flow through the provinces. What we're watching for in the next couple of weeks is to see whether the money that's dedicated to the people and businesses gets through.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

The problem, Mr. Nighbor, is that the government's solution doesn't meet the industry's needs. I'm a businessman, so I know that money isn't what the industry needs. What the industry wants is access to markets. The problem with the U.S. is that we now have little to no market access, because of the tariffs.

The answer isn't to hand out subsidies to businesses. In fact, they're not even subsidies; they're actually loans or loan guarantees. Programs to improve efficiency are also being made available to them. Improving efficiency is well and good, but if there aren't any markets—